


Who You Are

by jehane18



Series: Who We Are [1]
Category: The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: Character Study, Divorce, F/F, F/M, Identity Issues, M/M, Open Relationships, Pining, Polyfidelity, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:32:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6612499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane18/pseuds/jehane18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who are they, when nobody's looking?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When I'm Not Looking

**Author's Note:**

> Identity songfic in this new fandom! I picked [this song](http://www.metrolyrics.com/who-are-you-when-im-not-looking-lyrics-blake-shelton.html), because it seemed apropos. Pairings and pairingswap all over the place as the chapters progress. The Voice (US) cast/Reader takes place in Ch 5.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam doesn't belong to Blake. He doesn't belong to Behati or the fans or to his band, or to anyone except his own damn self.

The face Adam shows to the world is this very public one: the scenery-chewing rock star, Elton John's tiny dancer, the high wire artist who flings himself out into thin air without a safety net every performance of every night, and soars. 

This is the Adam Levine his fans see – the electric god of reality TV, the ridiculous peroxide hair, the razor-sharp wit, all snappy comebacks and verbal diarrhoea. The taut body that yoga and rock-and-roll built, all lean, down-flowing lines and bones and sinew, inked with crazy looping doodles and the face of some generic floozy that should be butt-ugly but which he wears on his flawless skin like it's the inner dome of the Sistine Chapel. 

Man rides that red chair as if the leather was sculpted for his perfect ass. He strides across the Voice stage in his motorcycle boots, skin-tight jeans hanging low from his lizard's hips, showing a deliberate sliver of skin and more than a sliver of fucking cock-tease underwear. He walks between the lights and the pulsing screams of the crowd like he owns them all. 

Not for nothing does Adam brag about powering this show with his goddamned ego. Days like this, when he's wowing the talent with his performing-arts-school, Grammy-winner mumbo-jumbo, when he's got Carson and Pharrell and even Christina eating out of his bony hand, Blake thinks he might have a point. 

The self Adam makes for his band is the charismatic pack leader. First amongst equals, smarter than anyone has any right to be, he plays more instruments than anyone Blake knows. He corrals his guys onstage and doesn't drop a note, this skinny, pretty-boy front-man with just as much brass balls than any Southern military general ever had. 

Of course, there was the self he'd showed to the marquee line of women, the random guys, who'd ever climbed into his bed, sometimes all at once. _"Maria just lay there; Samantha was more into fucking herself than she was into fucking me; Jimmy made me do all the goddamned work."_ It made him sound like a piece of shit, which of course he'd totally been in those days, and yet by God if the jackass kiss-and-tell act hasn't put a dent in the hordes of celebs and groupies who still want a piece of him, even now he's got a ring on his finger. It's not like it's made a difference to Behati, anyhow, or to Blake himself.

The self he shows to Behati is different. He plays the attentive, indulgent husband with her, treats her as if she's made from bone china and birdsong and the California sun. Blake gets it, thinks he gets her, too, as it happens. It's not real complicated, loving her makes his boy happy, and that's all he needs to know about that.

The self he shows to Blake ... well.

_My oh my, you're so good-looking  
Hold yourself together like a pair of bookends_

The self he shows to Blake is the co-worker that sits down the row from him and pulls his pigtails. The cut-throat rival who'd coo and cajole and straight-up lie to the youngsters on the show, that he, Blake Tollison Shelton, is a good-for-nothing Southern hick from Hicksville, Oklahoma, who wouldn't know the difference between his vibrato and his asshole if the words didn't rhyme somehow, and wouldn't they be better off with Adam Levine as their coach instead. 

This self has a feral, powder-keg sideways grin, a cut-glass profile that can take his breath away if he's not careful.

_Who are you when I'm not looking?_

Then of course there's Adam the _moron_ : the free-wheeling prankster who puts ice cubes down Blake's shirt like he's still in high school, who thinks it's hilarious to bury a stash of White Widow in Blake's refrigerator for his ex-wife to find and give him tropical cyclone-levels of crap about, who plays Guitar Hero in Blake's living room at 2 am in the morning wearing a white shirt and y-fronts and who careens down Blake's hallway in his white cotton socks like Tom fucking Cruise in Risky Business, Blake has no idea any more.

_Do you pour a little something on the rocks?  
Slide down the hallway in your socks?_

Then there's the Adam who pins him to the wall of his dressing room on set in the mornings, who crawls into his bed at night, the freak-of-nature hotness dialled up to eleven. Everything's a performance with Adam, and sex is no exception – the fucker knows exactly what he's doing when he peels his clothes from his body and Blake can hardly think, watching the elastic slide of muscles under hot skin, the flushed red jut of his dick as he pulls the jeans off, hooded eyes never leaving Blake's face.

Adam knows exactly what he's doing when he calls Blake _cowboy_ and _Big Country_ and says, _fuck yeah, Big Daddy, fuck me just like that_ ; when he shoves Blake with all his strength so that Blake will shove him back, no holds barred, when Blake buries himself balls-deep in Adam and he jack-knifes under Blake's hips and fights and thrashes and moans like he's dying.

Afterwards Blake lies awake so he can stare at Adam as he dozes off, watches his breath even out and his eyelashes flicker in REM sleep, watches him as he cloaks himself in dreams where Blake can't follow. This is the self Adam never shows to Blake – a mirage on the horizon that he feels he's maybe been chasing forever, running after this man in his head like some lovesick fool, knowing he can't ever catch up to him but knowing that he'll try anyway, till his old heart runs out. 

_Who are you when I'm not around?_  
_When the door is locked and the shades are down?_  
_Do you listen to your music quietly?_  
_And when it feels just right, are you thinking of me?_

Blake has no idea if Adam thinks about him when he's not around. How Adam feels about him when they're not trading insults across the Voice stage, when he's not drinking beer at his side and racking the pool table with his cue like a pole dancer, when he's not writhing and buck naked and strung-out under Blake and begging him to please, cowboy, just let him fucking come. 

Adam doesn't belong to Blake. He doesn't belong to Behati or the fans or to his band, or to anyone except his own damn self. Blake will never understand him, and it makes him crazy. He's a song Blake knows and will never know, strange and familiar at the same time, like the sound of his own heartbeat. When Blake isn't looking – where is he going, what does he want, who does he love, who the hell is he?

_I wanna know, I wanna know, I wanna know._


	2. In Disguise as Neil Patrick Harris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After NPH's identity prank on The Voice, Adam considers who he is to Blake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vindicatedtruth said, "Fix it!" and I made a good faith attempt. Warnings for more identity shenanigans, and references to NPH crapping into a hat.

Adam knew it was stupid of him to have gotten all bent out of shape over this. 

After all, he took pride in being a consummate prankster himself. He was the one who put Kool-Aid in Ceelo’s Coke Zero cup and dusted talcum powder on Christina’s chair and TP-ed Usher’s new ride when it was in plain sight in the Voice VIP parking garage. And who could forget the time he'd stashed sub-standard weed in the vegetable drawer of Blake’s refrigerator a couple years ago for Miranda to cook with, and their dogs had all gotten high? Good times. He should appreciate a good prankster; it took one to know one. 

But for some reason getting pranked on his own show by Neil fucking Harris? Really burned his ass. The actual identity prank that Neil had played, with his cutesy "who am I?" schtick? Underlined the real question: _who did Neil Patrick Harris think he was, anyway?_

Obviously it wasn’t as if he was going to do something as juvenile as taking revenge. He wasn't some petulant sore loser, although time was that he’d've had a cake made of poop delivered to that imposter’s house, or glitter-bombed the _How I Met Your Mother_ set that was his place of work, or sent a brace of trashy strippers around to the man’s cute boyfriend. Not that he’d given much thought to any such scenarios, of course: he now had a reputation as a married man and media mogul to uphold.

Okay, fine, so he might have mentioned some of these revenge scenarios to Blake, in a purely hypothetical way? He wasn't going really going to act on them, so what was the harm? The wet blanket that he was, Blake pointed out that _How I Met Your Mother_ had wrapped for good last year, so his revenge plan would just have involved a massive waste of glitter.

Also, now Adam thought about it, the man’s cute boyfriend had become his cute husband, and there might be even cuter kids in the picture now, so the stripper idea was likely to backfire spectacularly and in a non-kid-friendly way, too.

What really burned him was that Harris’ prank hoisted Adam on his own petard. At least Adam knew what that meant, even if smarmy responsible-adult Big Daddy didn’t. Still, let it not be said that Adam Levine could not take a joke or be the bigger person. 

"Here's what we're going to do," Adam said, when he arrived at Blake's suite at the Beverly Wilshire that evening with munchies and an external hard drive. “We are gonna watch the hell out of every single Neil Patrick Harris movie ever made, so we can really understand why we didn't recognise the fucker when he came on our show." 

He didn’t add: _and so we can know our enemy_ , because Blake would just accuse him of being an immature teenager again and what was the fun in that?

Blake sighed in a long-suffering way and pushed his hand through his wet hair. It was cute the way Blake couldn’t wait to high-tail it off the set so he could wash off all the crap the Voice stylists put into his hair and onto his remarkably sexy face. Adam, on the other hand, was sufficiently alpha-male to not mind leaving the eyeliner on after the show.

“Awesome. Sounds like so much fun. What’s in it for me?”

Adam batted his eyelashes. “I brought you the free-range nachos you like? Also, I could blow you later, in the free-range way you like, too?”

“Fine. Anything for nachos and blowjobs,” said Blake, the fucker, rolling his eyes like it was going out of style.

Adam hooked his drive up to the hotel’s 44-inch flat screen TV and uploaded _A Million Ways to Die in the West_ as seriously as if it was high quality porn. Blake fetched a regular Coors for himself and a zero-carb Corona for Adam, then lolled on the king-size and tore open the bag of nachos and made appreciative sounds, which Adam assumed were less in response to the snack and more to do with the view. After all, Adam had put on his custom-fit Fabric Brand FB02-AMOS jeans precisely so that his hillbilly co-star could check out his quality yoga ass. 

Soon enough, scenes of Neil twirling a fake moustache and rocking a ten-gallon cowboy hat made their way onscreen. Adam crawled into the bed, settling down to watch the movie and grab some snuggles with his own cowboy. 

Who was more interested in pointing out the inaccuracies in the movie like the damn thing was _Doctor Zhivago_. “Look, nobody builds sheep farms like that! Not now, not in freaking 1882! And look at those modern saddles on those bandits’ horses – this is supposed to be frontier town, not the freaking Jack Daniels Rodeo!” It was totally Greek to Adam, but seeing the big lug get all purist about the historical Wild West was not unattractive.

“Not sure if it’s the fluffy sheep or Neil Patrick Harris that’s getting you riled up, but it’s a cute look on you,” Adam drawled, putting his head on Blake’s country-plaid-clad shoulder.

“Seriously! The man can’t tell his six shooter from his goddamn six _pack_.” Blake gesticulated crossly at the TV, then glared back down at Adam. “Anyway, why are you complaining? It was your idea to watch this freaking thing."

"Not complaining. Doing the opposite of complaining. Saying you're cute is totally not complaining," Adam said, grinning. He hooked his thumb in Blake's World Wrestling Federation-dinner-plate-sized belt buckle. 

"I dunno if I like the sound of that, either," Blake snorted. "I'm secure enough in my masculinity as the next guy, but next thing you'll be fixing to have me braid my hair and read from 'My Little Pony'. Cute is for grade schoolers and puppies and tiny blonde women." 

"You tall drink of handsome, you're so cute when you pout," cooed Adam, mockingly, and Blake shoved him off, trying not to grin. 

"Jackass. I swear I don't get you half the time."

"Only half? My mysterious-stranger act must be slipping." Adam wound his arms even more tightly around Blake's chest and snuggled in, even more obnoxiously. Blake sighed into the top of Adam's head and allowed himself to be held like a teenage girl with a Zayn Malik body pillow.

They watched as Neil's character sang a song about how fabulous his moustache was, and then consumed a very historically inaccurate laxative and anachronistically crapped into his hat. And didn't stop crapping, as it happened -- Adam had no idea why the man, who to all accounts was a talented professional with a serious acting career, would've thought this shitty extended gag about taking an extended dump was a good idea. Then again, who knew who the man really was, right?

"Y'know, I appreciate toilet humor as much as the next guy, but even I have had enough of this movie," said Blake. "Let's watch something else." 

It was a toss-up between _Gone Girl_ and _How I Met Your Mother_. They finished the nachos and opened more beers and decided on the TV franchise. Adam had gotten Annie to download the last season, the one where Neil's character, the famous multiple-dating Lothario Barney Stimpson, was trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to make it work with one woman, although his instincts toward debauchery kept getting in the way.

"That is a whole lot of testosterone right there," Blake commented, as Barney went through his extensive list of conquests onscreen: all curvy and conventionally attractive and almost-caricatures of femininity.

"Yeah, Barney's really aggressively straight," said Adam. "What's weird is that for all Neil's faults, he's the least dickwad-hetero guy in real life. Did we figure out whether he has kids with that husband of his?"

"I think so," Blake said. Then he went quiet, and his blue eyes narrowed -- not in the sexified way, in the serious-thought way. "Do _you_ wanna have kids? Some day?" 

Adam mentally geared up. It was important not to lie about this, or side-step, even. "Yeah?" he said, cautiously. "Yeah, I do. Spread the Levine seed, y'know? Same as Neil Patrick, most likely it's why he got married." Even more cautiously: "Me too, as it happens."

Blake shrugged. "You get that new dad puppy-dog thing around babies, don't think I don't see it. Me, I'm not so sure."

"Thought Miranda wasn't too keen?" Adam figured this wasn't a side-step. Blake didn't mind talking about many things with him, including his ex-wife; it was one of the reasons Adam actually liked conversing with the Southern hick.

Blake shoved him. "What, you read that in People Magazine? Jackass, not true. It's just, well. It's a huge deal. You only wanna bring kids into the mix when you figure you're in the right place, you know?"

Adam could hear the ache in Blake's voice, even if that man wasn't going to admit it to himself. He rubbed his hand against Blake's chest as if that could help erase some of the old hurt.

Change the subject. "Seems they've been together since they were in their twenties?" he said, about the Harrises. "Gotta give it to Neil, he knew how to lock his boy down early." 

Blake snorted and put his hand over Adam's, stilling the movement. "You really _have_ been reading People Magazine."

Adam felt able to prevaricate about Neil fucking Harris. "I just wanted to do a kind of background check, is all."

Uh-oh: Blake propped himself up on his free arm so he could look at Adam properly. "Okay, tell me the truth. Why does it bug you this bad that we didn't recognise him? That he got the better of you?" There was the serious-thought look again. "Think you're so smart nobody can do that?"

Adam felt himself frown. This was more introspection than he really wanted to deal with with Blake. Still, being pinned under that blue gaze made him honest, made him try. "It bugs me... I don't know. Maybe it's an alpha-male thing. What do we do when someone gets the better of us, when we don't recognise someone in disguise who we really oughtta know?"

"Do we really know anyone?" Blake's mouth tightened. "It’s like, I don't know if I'll ever know _you_."

Well, that came totally out of left field. Adam wasn't sure what to make of the wry, crooked smile, of how Blake looked away from him quickly, the small pulse clearly visible in the side of his neck. Adam's pulse sped up in response, his fingers tightened around Blake's. 

"Don't be ridiculous. You _do_ know me. You know how I get when I'm cranky and when I'm cold and when I'm being competitive, and when someone tries to prank me on my fucking show. You see everything about me, cowboy."

"Bullshit," said Blake, flatly, looking away. "You said it yourself: you play the mysterious stranger to everybody, even me. Especially me. You're always in disguise, I don't know who you are half the time and no mistake."

Oh, shit. There was real hurt there, Adam had no idea why except that it was because of him.

He didn't know what he could say to this; he'd say anything if it meant it'd ease the pain in Blake's voice. He took hold of that chiselled jaw to make the big lug look at him. 

"Damn it, I'm the man who wants to be with you," he found himself saying, and leaned over.

This was around the time Adam would usually resort to sex to smooth things over with a partner. He'd crank the old sex-o-meter up to eleven and a half and let his mouth and hands and his sex-god eight and a half inches make the case for him, rip their clothes off and maybe stoke their daddy issues or wilder kinks with his honeyed words and even more honeyed tongue, and it usually worked, too. 

But for some reason it didn't go that way that night, not with this man and not in this man's bed. This was Blake, whom he fought with on set, whom he fucked with and then fucked afterwards, who'd cried in Adam's arms the day he'd left his ex-wife, who adored Adam's mom and, improbably, Adam's wife, and even more improbably adored Adam himself. This was the man who knew as much about him as anyone would.

Adam pushed his mouth against Blake’s throat as he slowly unbuttoned the plaid shirt and unbuckled his big shiny belt and unfastened his button-fly jeans; pressed feather-light kisses to Blake’s sternum as he drew the stupid cowboy clothes piece by piece from that irresistible body in a stripped-down reverse striptease. 

When Blake was finally naked, he ran his tongue gently down the trail of hair under Blake’s navel and took that big cock into his mouth, no fancy tricks, just sucking long and luxuriously, time slowing down, seconds and minutes ticking away, until Blake’s breath was coming in short gasps and there was salty pre-come leaking down the back of Adam's throat. 

Blake groaned when he pulled off, stared at Adam as he got up in bed to haul his tee-shirt over his head and push his designer jeans off his hips. There was an unfamiliar light in Blake’s clouded eyes, like he was looking at Adam for the first time, and, who knows, maybe he was.

“Who are you and what have you done with Adam Levine?”

Adam grinned. Blake looked pretty wrecked, his dark red cock so hard there was probably very little blood in his brain. He reached across to the nightstand where the cowboy kept the condoms and lube.

“I'm the real Adam, sweetheart. Not sure why you're so surprised. I contain multitudes.”

“This multi-you is gonna kill me,” Blake said, dazedly, watching as Adam started to work himself open. "Adam -- goddamn it, let me --"

"I wanna do it for you," Adam whispered, rocking himself on his fingers, feeling the burn. It was worth the look of helpless arousal on Blake's face as he reached for Adam, big hands opening and closing on his hips, unable to assist but unable to resist. 

"Adam, please -- fuck --"

"This is me, all of me,” Adam said, pulling his fingers out of his ass, taking hold of Blake's dick. "This is who I am. The man who wants to be here, the man who wants to be with you," and he straddled Blake's thighs and shifted himself downwards, and Blake groaned as he slid home and seated himself, balls-deep, inside Adam at last.

Adam groaned, too; this was so different from their usual fight-and-fuck dynamic: a lush unfurling in slow motion that filled him to the hilt, so open and vulnerable that he could barely stand it, that he could only ride out as if it was a mid-tempo funk groove that skimmed the pocket like it was the surface of the world.

"Fuck, fuck," Blake panted, desperate, hovering on the horizon's edge, and Adam leaned down to frame his face with sticky hands and to kiss him again.

"Damn it, Blake, I need you to know, I'm yours," and Blake made a sobbing sound, like he was dying, like he was learning to fly, and found his release at last.

Adam let himself free-fall after, came apart with Blake buried inside him.

They usually separated quickly after they were done: Blake with the need to shower, Adam with the need to sleep. But this time time itself stayed slow. Blake was in no hurry; he held Adam in his big arms, to hell with the wrecked sheets, the mess, their sticky, cooling bodies entwined together. Adam put his forehead to Blake's sweaty one and didn't want to let go, either.

"Meant what I said," Adam murmured, after a while. "I want to be with you, always. This is who I am. Didn't mean to disguise anything. Thought you knew, Big Country."

Blake was silent for a long time. "I know now," he said, at last, and held Adam, without complaint, to his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[The time NPH pranked the Voice (US) 2015](https://vimeo.com/148931444): Viewers got their first taste of Neil Patrick Harris' new show, Best Time Ever. One of his first pranks set up The Voice coaches when Harris went in disguise as "Jurgen Vollmer," the fictitious new host of The Voice Austria. Between cringe-worthy interviews with the current judges and an unforgettably bad audition, it was obvious something was up..._


	3. You Can Pretend That It Was Me (But No)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If she ever leaves him, she thinks Blake will be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Adam/Behati, Behati Prinsloo/Candice Swanepoel, polyfidelity, open relationships

Her name comes from a Swahili word that means "Fortunate". She knows luck has touched her lightly on the shoulder and smiled into her face. B, for _bahati_ , she calls herself, deep down where not even her husband goes.

First and foremost, she's her father's daughter. Her daddy still ministers to the faithful in the small white church in Windhoek where she grew up. Cut her and she's pretty sure you'll find holy writ pulsing from her veins in red and gold — not the meek, milk-and-water deity of the civilised world, but the fire and brimstone God who speaks in tongues of flame, who sets fire to the underbrush and razes villages to the ground, who burns in the heart of every free animal and every lonely soul on this wild planet.

Even deeper down, she's made from harsh desert roads, from slabs of granite and swirling sands of the world's oldest desert. She wears the crashing waves of the storm-tossed Atlantic coast in her hair, carries the wildness of Namibia's great cats in her blue eyes. 

The city boy she chose in the end doesn't really understand this about her, though he is very smart in many ways that involve both book-learning and living. They're from two different worlds, and although she's spent a decade less on this earth than he has, her world has always been older. 

His world is constant buzzing, frantic energy, skating on the edge, swiping and changing and folding in on itself and transforming into something new. He chooses to write on his body, chooses to surround himself with a different group of buzzing, on-edge people, chooses to reinvent his world all the time so he can stave off boredom and feed his creative energy and not let anyone get too close to him, not even her.

Her world has been the same for millennia. It'll stand when his has crumbled or has eaten itself like the world's snake in that old story. 

She agrees to marry him, marries him in a blush pink dress. It's not proper to get married in a white dress if you're not actually a virgin, and B hasn't been a virgin in a long time. She gets that not everyone's this conservative, but it comes with the territory as a preacher's daughter. Besides, pink is much more her colour.

She's a decade younger than he is but she's turned him into her child; he actually says to some talk show host, "It's so trippy, I'm a child, but now I have a wife! I changed her name on my phone to 'Wife', you know?" And he really did; he digs that he can call her that, can say she belongs to him, that she'll wear his name as well as his ring, that he's her husband. She likes it too, of course she does. That's what marriage is about.

She knows, though, that he'll never completely belong to her. She knows she'll have to share him with his best friend and his band and rock and roll. She thinks it's for the best. After all, who wants to totally own another human being? Besides: she's herself made for the wide, wild desert, to run free, made so nobody can own her except God and her own self and maybe their child for a little while. Not even the boy who cried when he sang to her at their wedding and put his ring on her finger, who weeps into her hair when he spends himself between her perfect thighs. 

She loves him, but no matter what he says to talk shows hosts or thinks at night, she'll never be totally his.

There's a girl she loves, even more wild and untameable than B herself, who'd shared her string-bean youth and learned the ropes at her side and helped her fend off predators at the top of their industry's food chain. The girl whose body she'd learned, pressed against hers in changing rooms and dark clubs and a model's narrow camp bed, whose soul her soul has known forever. They're so in sync, body and soul, that they'd conceived and are carrying and will birth their babies together. If she hadn't chosen Adam and Candy hadn't chosen Herman, she would have made that girl hers. 

And so it goes: part of her will always belong to that magnificent creature, her best friend, the other half of her heart. 

There's another thing she knows. She knows his best friend loves him, knows this maybe because her own best friend loves her. Maybe even more than she loves Adam herself, who even knows with these things? She knows enough to feel sorry for Blake: she's sorry about Miranda; sorry that, although Gwen is awesome and a role model and someone who B herself looks up to, Gwen may not finally, eventually be enough for Blake. 

For some reason there's a place inside Blake that only her man can fill, as if the country boy's wide open spaces were made to be covered by Adam's acid rain, as if those ears, used to the silence of the prairie, were a station tuned to the staccato rhythm of Adam's changing heart. 

It's the same way as she has cut for herself a deep gully into Adam's life with her millennia-old claws, the same way she knows, still and always, how to make her best friend cry with joy and with sorrow, the same way their children will fit into her arms and she'll never let go — it's nature, it can't be fought, it's the way God made her, and him, and all of them. 

She figures that settling down and starting a family will make him stay with her. It's how he's made: civilisation is a great domesticating factor, and the city is in his blood. He'll ride his instincts and make his rounds and take his pleasure, but he'll always come home to the family who bears his name. 

It won't necessarily make _her_ stay, though. She's pretty sure he knows this about her. First and foremost she belongs to God and then she belongs to herself. She's always a heartbeat away from strapping her babies to her back and hiking toward the horizon, and that's how it should be. No woman should be beholden to any man, no woman should be without an escape plan, an exit route, especially if the trap is a plush Hollywood Hills mansion and a velvet-trimmed four-poster bed. Nothing will tame her, nothing can blunt the desert she carries with her — not a city's luxuries, not a husband's indulgent tenderness, not the pretty fur-lined cage of her industry. 

She knows she can leave all the meaningless frills behind and return with the blood of her blood to that quiet white-walled church in Windhoek, and that's what gives her her power: the power that no man or woman, no husband or girlfriend or best friend, can ever take away.

She's not planning on leaving him, but if ever she does, she thinks Blake will be there. At least he'll always have that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RPF hardly addresses the women, and I wanted to write for an alternative perspective of untamed, gorgeous B. Hopefully I paint her sympathetically and respectfully. Obvious imagined fiction, no misrepresentation or libel intended. Title from Maroon 5's Animals.


	4. Whoever I Want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I can love whoever I want say whatever I want Do whatever I want (-- Gwen Stefani, "Me Without You")_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Blake Shelton/Gwen Stefani, and some explict het -- apologies for those of you for whom this might be a bug and not a feature. Also Adam Levine & Gwen Stefani, and Adam/Behati references, and pretty much general polyamory.

If anyone knew where they stood and what they wanted and who they were, it was this girl: no question. 

Named for a novel and a baroque love song -- the Roman Catholic daughter of a suburban Californian family -- she'd wanted to write songs for as long as she could remember, and she had done that. She'd made music that won awards and that spoke to disenfranchised kids with eclectic style and even more eclectic beliefs who never felt they belonged. She'd wanted to tour, and she'd done that as well, dramatically dropping out of school one day to hit the road and staying there for two years, living out of a suitcase of _Contempo Casuals_ dresses in cheap motels and tour buses and never heading back. 

She had wanted to make stylish clothes all kids would want to wear and she did that too eventually -- her mom had made all her clothes when she was a girl, her grandmother had been a seamstress; her great-grandma used to start sewing every family member a quilt on New Year's Day and finish in time for the next Christmas. Design was in her blood, and when she launched her label her family all said they'd told her so.

Also something she'd wanted, ever since she could remember : to be in love. She'd wanted a family, and she had done that, as well, in spades -- she'd nabbed herself the perfect husband and made herself into the perfect wife. People (and PEOPLE Magazine) said she'd made the perfect Earth mother. She'd given her man three perfect, amazing boys and gotten her figure back every single time.

In the end, it hadn't been enough for Gavin, but fuck that: it wasn't on her. She wished him well, of course, he was the father of her children, but after everything he'd done he could totally kiss her perfect ass. 

PEOPLE had also said when she joined the Voice's judging panel that she'd been irresistible -- a blonde in distress, a saintly woman wronged, a princess with a broken kingdom and a broken heart, ripe to be swept off her feet by an old-fashioned knight on a white charger and some aptitude in the rescuing department. 

Of course it was bullshit. She'd stalked onto that stage in her Viktor & Rolf leopard-skin platform heels like she meant to pillage and conquer, like she was made out of diamond, indestructible, and her enemies fell under the swathe of her sword. Her heart might have been in pieces but she'd've cut off her own arm before she'd let anyone see.

And Blake might be old-fashioned, but he'd never had a white-knight persona or a rescue complex. If he had, she would have poured her drink over his handsome head that first night and never looked back. She'd had enough of a man's protection, of sheltering at anyone's unreliable side, she wasn't going to cede her hard-won power to any man, no matter how good with her kids he was or how broad his shoulders were.

She had to give it to him, though: Blake's brawny shoulders were extremely broad. He was disgustingly good-looking, square-jawed like a 1940s movie star, the sort of guy she'd dreamed about when she'd been a Marilyn Monroe-loving teen. He was younger than she was and he'd known how to use it -- the night she'd finally said yes to him, he'd managed to wring her out three times, and he'd kept going until the morning.

"Holy shit, cowboy, I don't know what you're on, but it's totally working for you," she'd said, subsiding against the wreck of her sheets and finally admitting temporary defeat. She knew she was in the best shape of her entire goddamned life, and she couldn't believe she still couldn't keep up with him.

He had rolled over onto his belly and given her his most roguish smile. The early morning light slid across his bare skin and turned the muscles in his chest and belly and strong thighs to shining bronze.

"It's you," he'd said, blushing a little, like every cringe-worthy, heartfelt country song ever sung. 

His tousled curls stood on end, his mouth was red from pleasuring her; he looked like a teenager, wild and fake-cocky and heartbreakingly eager. Like a teenager, he was also half-hard again. She couldn't resist, tackling him around the neck and wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing the breath from him. 

When she let him go he looked up at her like he couldn't believe he was here in her bed; his blue eyes were a glaze of helpless love.

She'd never been shallow, but she couldn't deny how pretty those eyes were. She also couldn't deny that younger man's stamina, and how his shoulders were broad enough to hold her burdens, now that she trusted him enough to let him bear them for a little while.

He wasn't just a pretty face, either, or a young buck in the sack; he was also really good with her kids. He taught Kings and Zuma to pitch a ball and let them teach him to skateboard; the baby would throw tantrums for everyone except _Blakey_. Who would have thought the plaid-wearing giant would turn out to be this toddler whisperer? 

After Tony, she'd tried to keep to the rule about not dating co-workers, but that had lasted as long as it'd taken to fall in love with Gavin, on tour with Bush in '95. She might as well accept it: she'd always been the person who wanted something or someone they saw, and she'd usually end up getting what she wanted if she wanted it badly enough.

And that someone had ended up being Blake Tollison Shelton, co-worker and country star and cut-throat competitor, who'd sat across from her in a matching red chair, all blue eyes and deceptive mildness. He'd won her over by making her want him badly enough, by getting the hell she'd been going through because he was going through it himself, by offering to stand at her side throughout it when that kind of offer was more precious than gold.

 

 

Of course, there'd been the man in the other red chair. She'd known about Adam and Blake coming into the show, nobody kept secrets for long on the set or in this town. Adam was newly married, but it seemed he'd been hooking up with his co-worker from long before then, and she'd even heard that Behati was good with it. It seemed Miranda had been less than good, even though it had apparently not been why that woman had decided to leave.

Early on she'd made the mistake of thinking that that was all there was: everyone was into kinky sex in this town, and Adam just smelled like one of those vain, shallow love gurus who had dieted and yogaed himself into a state of zero body fat and even fewer brain cells. She'd be the first one to admit to the man's physical allure, she understood why Blake might be drawn to that androgynous, beautiful face and lean, chiselled body that men might envy and that no woman could hope to equal.

Also, Adam and Blake sniped and fenced and battled fiercely over the unformed talents on the show, and, well, it wouldn't be the first time that a pair of co-workers' onstage-fighting dynamic developed into actual offstage _fucking_.

Weirdly, Adam was much more than the tail-chasing bimbo he pretended to be; he was cleverer and more strategic and definitely more complex behind the mask than she could have predicted. He was a mass of contradictions -- sarcastic and couldn't-give-a-fuck about half the things in the world, and yet he cared deeply about left wing politics and minority group advocacy and US foreign policy and could actually debate with people who did that shit for a living. He was ridiculously protective of his family and friends, he treated his wife like she was the sun and stars of his world, and it seemed Blake wasn't just enamoured of that Pilates-sculpted ass, he was actually in love with the man.

She hadn't been best pleased about that, because she didn't know how Adam really felt -- he played his cards so coolly close to that man-scaped chest -- and she didn't want to see Blake hurt. Maybe part of why she'd taken Blake into her bed had been to see if she could make him forget Adam Levine.

It hadn't really worked. Blake was smitten with her: his own heart was in pieces and yet he made himself wide-open vulnerable to her; he was looking to put down roots, and she was just the sort of girl who would do it for him. She was well aware of what she brought to the table; she'd known he'd admire her and, more, he'd idolise her, her brains and womanly looks and Stevie Nicks voice. On some level, he figured she was out of his league and that he didn't deserve her and couldn't believe she was with him; he was dead wrong, but sometimes people couldn't help feeling what they felt.

She could tell, though, that he was also vulnerable to Adam, drawn to his combination of masculinity and gentleness, to the cavalier attitude that made the hidden depths all the more irresistible. On some level he figured he didn't deserve Adam too, and he couldn't help feeling that way, either. 

 

 

She let it fester for a while while she thought about what she wanted. She went fishing in Fort Gibson with him and skeet shooting in Oklahoma City; she walked the Oscars red carpet holding his hand and brought him home to meet her parents in Bel Air. She let him take her kids to Florida, and between the silk sheets of the Chateau Marmont, she let him ride her strap-on and didn't let him come until he begged for mercy.

When they got back from Florida, she scheduled lunch with Adam at Manresa in Los Gatos. 

He arrived in aviators and skinny 501s and vintage sneakers from her first L.A.M.B. men's collection; the clothes showed off muscles no woman had. His hair was the same color as hers, and that was how she realized he was nervous, too.

She ordered martinis for both of them, and then she put her hand over his.

"I love him," was what she led off with, putting all her cards on the table. "And I want what's best for him. Can you say the same thing? Tell me the truth, Adam."

Adam put his aviators in his ridiculous peroxided hair. His eyes were more serious than she'd ever seen them, and she'd seen them despairing over a loss and fixated on a win and narrowed in single combat.

"I've loved him for longer than you have," he said, slowly. "And I've always wanted what he wanted. But maybe you're right, what he wants isn't always the best thing for him."

She was astonished that he'd be this open with her. "He wants _you_ ," she said, truthfully, and for some reason it didn't hurt any more, if ever it did. 

Adam looked down. "Yeah, and wanting me might be one of those things that isn't so hot for him. Besides, he wants you too," he added, earnest and unguarded, and in that moment she could have kissed him. 

She let out a shaky breath: maybe she wasn't as well armored as she'd thought. 

"Well. I don't see why he can't want both of us at the same time," she said. 

Adam raised his eyebrows, as well he might, because it wasn't something she'd come here to say. She'd meant it, though. There'd been kindness and compassion in Adam's face, and more: there'd been the willingness to look beyond what Adam so obviously wanted, the willingness to put Blake's interests first.

"I can see why he wants you," he said. "And I'm glad it's you, Gwen. You could be so good for him, exactly what he needs."

There was a ridiculous welling in her eyes. She swiped the corners with careful fingers, and then saw Adam's eyes were shining, too.

"I know, right?" she said. "That man needs looking after, and God knows you're not going to do it for him, Adam Levine."

Adam snorted with laughter, and heads turned in their direction. "Guilty as charged. God knows I'm a self-centered bitch. I'm going to try to do better, I promise. I owe it to the big lug to be a better boyfriend, especially since he now has the perfect girl."

She blushed despite herself, and squeezed Adam's fingers. "Nobody's perfect, and definitely not me."

Adam squeezed back. "But we could be perfect for him, am I right?"

 

 

She ended up getting completely wasted on the martinis, the way she'd been that night Gavin had told her he was leaving, but with infinitely more happiness, and besides she didn't get half as drunk as Adam, that lightweight.

When they poured themselves onto the rehearsal stage later, snickering uncontrollably and staggering a little and holding each other up, Blake threw up his hands in despair.

"Who the heck are you guys and what have you done with my hard-working co-stars?"

Adam and Gwen eyed each other, and in unison they flung themselves onto Blake. Adam wrapped himself around Blake's neck, and Gwen slid her arms around her man's waist, just above the shiny belt she really liked.

Gwen said: "We're the people who love you!" and Adam whispered fiercely, "And we're gonna be everything you need, cowboy, always."

"Dumbass," Blake said, clasping back: grasping Adam's collar, scooping Gwen around the waist. "I'm always gonna need you, I'm always gonna want you, the both of you -- no doubt in my mind about it."

"Prove it to us, later," Adam said, slyly, and that sounded like the best idea that man ever had.


	5. You Are What You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: The Voice (TV) Cast/Reader, egregious mash-up songfic, and second person pov ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've finally arrived at the end of our journey. This story started out as a kind of one-note RPF crackfic about the different personas of the irritating, intriguing Adam Levine, and has turned into a story about identity, both celebrity and fannish. 
> 
> In this chapter we say hello to our old friend, Reader, who has many names: Mary Sue, Gary Stu, you, and me. Thank you for coming along on this ride!

You stand in the spotlight. 

Your hair is purple: it could be blond or brunette, it could have been a fauxhawk or a buzz-cut or braids. But here and now, it hangs around your face in a flawless cloud, perfectly styled for the first time in your life.

Beyond the stage, there are four red chairs, their backs to you.

You're shaking like a leaf in a high wind, but you'll never let anyone see how terrified you are.

Your trembling fingers find the A chord on your acoustic guitar.

_I am what I am, I am my own special creation..._

Your voice sounds strung out, nerves making it more nasal than it usually is. You fight to relax your throat and find your point of resonance, feeling the notes lift against your palate.

_So come take a look, Give me the hook or the ovation?_  
_It's my world that I want to take a little pride in,_  
_My world, and it's not a place I have to hide in...  
_

And then the main lights come on and the stage is flooded with brightness, as you hit your stride and barrel into the chorus:

_I am Rosemary's granddaughter_  
_The spitting image of my father_  
_And when the day is done, my momma's still my biggest fan_  
_Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy_  
_But I've got friends that love me_  
_And they know just where I stand..._

And just like that, you're singing your heart out: you're making love to this song onstage; you're jacking your acoustic down and dirty and the same way you jack yourself; music flowing out of you like your body's too small to contain all of it.

Blake's chair is the first to turn. He's wearing country plaid and a grey Stetson and he moves very quickly for such a big guy -- so quickly it looks like what he does is react on pure instinct, an automatic response that flares through him, you could ask him and he wouldn't be able to explain why. He's an open book to you, the kind of lover that would scoop you into his lap and frame your face in his hands and be right there with you, in the moment for every moment you were together, breathing and breathing you in.

_If I don't make it to the big leagues_  
_If I never win a Grammy_  
_I'm gonna be just fine_  
_'Cause I know exactly who I am_  


The second after Blake turns, his lady hits the button as well. Gwen is more beautiful than you'd dreamed possible, milky skin and Disney-princess hair and otherworldly grace. She undresses you with those bedroom eyes; she makes you feel rare and desirable, like you're the only person in the whole world for her, and for that shining second, you are.

_I am Rosemary's granddaughter_  
_The spitting image of my father_  
_It's all a part of me That's who I am_  


Alicia is the next to turn her chair. You know the least about her, but she's irresistible in black lace and leather, lush hair in a knot on top of her head. When she sees you standing there she smiles at you, warm and intimate, and suddenly everything about her is achingly familiar: she reminds you of your first love, the girlfriend you'd held hands with in high school and broke up with in college and who you'll never get over as long as you both shall live.

_I am what I am, And what I am needs no excuses_  
_I deal my own deck -- Sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces..._  


Adam turns last. His hair is ridiculous, he's wearing a ridiculous diamante t-shirt that shows off every yoga-toned muscle in his body, and his hotness is off the charts. You have no idea what's in his eyes or what kind of lover he'd be. You just know that in his arms you'd be in for the ride of your entire life.

And you're determined to finish singing the song of your entire fucking life, too.

_There's one life, and there's no return and no deposit;_  
_One life, so it's time to open up your closet._  
_Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say,_  
_"Hey world, I am what I am!"_  


The applause rises, and Blake gets to his feet as well. You sling your acoustic behind you, sliding the strap around your body, holding the instrument neck-down. You can't stop shaking, but it's now equal parts exhilaration and triumph as well as terror.

The four judges lob questions and comments at you, their voices overlapping -- "What's your name? Where you from? What made you pick that song?"

Alicia says, "You know, your voice really opens up on that big band sound! I love Gloria Gaynor."

"It's actually more John Barrowman," you hear yourself say, more confidently than you'd ever thought you could be on this stage, in front of these people.

"I love him," Alicia says; Gwen exclaims, "I love him too!" 

Blake says, "Barrow _who_?" and Adam rolls his eyes.

"Ignore this guy. He's been living under a rock for so long you'd think his head was two-dimensional." 

"At least my head isn't the color of My Little Pony," drawls Blake. You can't help noticing Blake's hair is brown and wavy and artfully tousled; your palms itch to touch it. Blake continues, staring pointedly at Adam, "I turned for this youngster because I thought they did a fresh take on the old Broadway song, made it real contemporary." He turns back to you and winks. "Plus, you know, kid, your voice is killer." 

Gwen says, "It was an interesting arrangement, but I gotta say, it was a little messed up. I'm not sure the whole Broadway-meets-Nashville mash-up was totally working."

She says it gently enough that you feel flattered rather than criticized. There's no judgment in her doe eyes, and a safe space, enough for you to tell her, grinning, "You know what, maybe _I'm_ a little messed up."

She claps her hands together. "Me too! I could totally work with that, if you join my team."

Blake makes a sweeping movement with his long arm. "Leave the Broadway to one side, sweetheart. Danielle Bradbery was my girl, she went all the way to the finals." He points his finger at you. "Tell you this: I want to take you there. I want you to be a part of Team Blake."

Adam leans forward again. His crazy hair looks like cotton candy under the stage lights. He flashes his famous grin, a feral, focused stretch of lips and teeth. 

"So here's the thing. Big Country here wants you to lose the Broadway, but I want you to work with it. He thinks _La Cage aux Folles_ is a strip club in Vegas; me, I know the original Jerry Herman score." You don't doubt it: Adam's intelligence is terrifying, and it's also a complete turn-on. "You choose me and I'll put my sparkly heels on and we'll kick this as an old school duet."

Blake leans forward too, and leers in a way that should be creepy, but is actually strangely hot. "Adam Levine in fishnets and sparkly heels, this I gotta see."

"Don't act so surprised. You know that's who I am, too, cowboy." 

Adam blows him a raspberry, and Blake returns it with a grand, smacking air-kiss.

Maybe some people find the sniping and flirting (and flirty sniping) confusing or irritating, but you think it's adorable, and it also tells you so many things about about them. Alicia's vibe is that she holds back, lets you come to her. On the other hand, Adam and Blake are the ultimate competitors -- they're fighting for you, fighting with each other; and at the same time you can see it's how they are in bed, how when they're fucking it's with the same fighting, competitive dynamic. And then there's Gwen, gorgeous and sensual and out of this world. She interjects, Blake laughs, Adam covers, and you know they each want you and they also want each other: there's a white-hot blaze that's running through all of them, connecting them like an irresistible current.

You want to find out what they're like, what you can give them, and you also want them to know who you are. 

You want the whole world to know. That's why you're here.

"Who do you choose as your coach?" asks Adam. 

What he means is: _Is this who you are? Who do you want to be with? Who do you want to be?_

When all lights are on you, and then afterwards, when the stage is dark and when the music's over, who are you? 

You clear your throat and step into the spotlight, and you make your choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reader sings a mash-up of "I Am What I Am", from La Cage Aux Folles -- a version that would sound like the unholy love child of Gloria Gaynor and John Barrowman -- and the Voice Season Two winner Danielle Bradbery's "Who I Am".


End file.
